


whipshot

by bokutoma



Series: sylvix week 2020 [2]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Alcohol, Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Disabled Character, Friends With Benefits, Glenn Fraldarius Lives, M/M, Soft Felix Hugo Fraldarius, Temporarily Unrequited Love, fuckboy sylvain
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:47:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26549209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bokutoma/pseuds/bokutoma
Summary: in which sylvain is a black hole, and felix cannot even dream of escaping his orbit(started for sylvix week day 2 // pining/longing / pda / college au)
Relationships: Felix Hugo Fraldarius/Sylvain Jose Gautier
Series: sylvix week 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1930645
Comments: 12
Kudos: 15
Collections: Sylvix Week 2020 Fic Collection





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> technically this has been in my head for a while, but no better time to start this than when the prompts match so perfectly.
> 
> enjoy!

According to Wikipedia (a site Felix often finds himself on despite his earnest attempts to get a good night's sleep; insomnia doesn't just stop because you want it to), the solar cycle is "a nearly periodic 11-year change in the Sun's activity measured in terms of variations in the number of observed sunspots on the solar surface." Every change in the Sun, from radiation to ejection, follows this cycle in a pattern of activity, quiet, activity.

For now, Felix knows he is in the quiet stage.

He was born at the beginning of a quiet spell as well, he knows. Perhaps everything wasn't perfect, but it was close, a nuclear family where his mother balanced out his father's archaic ideals and Glenn always covered for Felix when he came home crying about scraped knees.

Then Emelia Fraldarius died, and with her went the only chance he had of escaping the boiling heat that burned through his veins.

Activity did not cease so soon, however. Glenn enlisted in the army; how could he not when the Fraldarius family was born to be a family of service, hierarchy and blood bred into them until duty and honor consumed flesh and bone?

He is in Sreng now - has been for years - fighting off injuries that might have killed him in another life, still risking everything for king, council, and country like any of it means a damn thing.

He got an award for the first and worst of these injuries, saving the life of the future king and losing a couple of fingers and nearly his entire leg. He will never walk the same again, but what does it matter when Rodrigue can highlight his son's sacrifice?

In this period of relentless activity, Felix's only saving grace had been Dimitri.

Oh, how he had hated him at first, the boy who Glenn had given far more to than any one person should have to. Two months of visits where Dimitri had tried to make conversation with the back of Felix's head passed in hateful agony, and he had sworn to himself that he'd rather pluck out the prince's eye than ever speak to him.

Then Dimitri had brought the tablet.

Strictly speaking, Faerghus military personnel did not look kindly upon video calls with active-duty soldiers, but who was going to deny the command of their precious, precocious prince? Each week, without fail, Dimitri had brought a tablet that had probably cost more than three months of minimum wages and sat with Felix until the call connected and he either saw Glenn or learned he was back in the trenches.

Somehow, through those weekly visits where Glenn would treat the crown prince with almost the same light mockery that Felix had always been privy to, they became friends.

Solar flares: defined on Wikipedia as "a sudden flash of increased brightness on the Sun, usually observed near its surface and in close proximity to a sunspot group."

Positive or negative, Dimitri and Glenn are solar flares both.

So yes, Felix is infinitely familiar with the pattern of the solar cycle, the placidity that comes before two brutal periods of highs and lows. Never does it come without consequence, but in the fragile peace that had followed his mother's death and his brother's disability, he'd forgotten how badly a fall could sting. Certainly, he lived with the swollen, festering remnants of these wounds, but to feel them fresh? It's a pain he can no longer quite recall.

It's been so long that he has no doubt what's coming next. Soon, he will be tossed out to sea, battered around by unrelenting waves.

He moves into his dorm today.

In a better life, that would be a flare all its own, the pure excitement of something new, something _other_ than the hand he was dealt licking through his veins like a burgeoning flame.

Instead, he is afraid.

He does not have much to furnish this new living space. Rodrigue had offered, of course, wanted to spend his remaining few weeks with his youngest son before he flew from the nest; Felix had summarily refused. Dimitri, however, has apparently planned to live with a small army for all the creature comforts he brings along with him.

"I plan on making friends," he says when Felix points this out, and he would sound a lot more condescending if he weren't red-faced and panting from moving all that furniture around. Not that Felix is much better, really, but at least he has the moral high ground after being so helpful.

"I do not," Felix belatedly replies, and the withering look that Dimitri gives is pitiful by Fraldarius standards, but nearly alarming by his own.

"You," he says, then he grunts as they lift the plush armchair King Lambert had regifted his son years ago, far before he could even get into it on his own. "Are going to regret that."

"Make me."

Felix really should have known that the prince would always deliver.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> among the liquid beat of a party he doesn't want to be at, felix finds something worth sticking around for

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am absolutely fucking honored that my dear friend lark drew some art for this chapter! check it out [here](https://twitter.com/larkspureee/status/1308440346037231617?s=20)

The bass burns against the base of Felix's skull as he wedges his way through a throng of business majors, the colored lights of the frat house searing against his eyes. He's not even drunk yet, and he's already wondering how no one is disoriented and losing their mind. Maybe he _has_ to be drunk to enjoy this riot of sensation; from where he's standing, he just might be the only person who isn't going crazy with excitement.

Dimitri is a bastard for making him come to this.

_"Come now," he'd said in that insufferably gentle tone he only used when he thought he was right and that Felix would come around if he used his prince's voice. "It's practically a rite of passage, and you certainly wouldn't let me go alone, would you?"_

_The bastard had known that Felix wouldn't._ "Fine," _he'd hissed. "But if you make me do a keg stand, I_ will _commit regicide."_

And, true to his word, Dimitri hasn't thus far, but whether that's because he's actually upholding his word or because within the first five minutes of stepping foot on the beer-soaked floor, he'd been whisked away by overenthusiastic partygoers looking for an in with the prince of the whole damn nation, he supposes he'll never know. He's still clutching the same warm beer he was handed on the way in, but he can't really be assed to drink any of it before he finds his friend and rescues him from whatever dumb shit he's about to do in the name of making friends. After all, he has more than his own image to worry about.

It takes both elbows and a well-placed knee to make his way through the cluster of nursing majors who are either complaining or flirting with him - he's really not certain which - but by the time he makes it through to the other side, he can spot Dimitri, who's actually found himself a couch to sit on, talking quietly with a couple of other men, and Felix takes a moment to marvel at the probability of his finding the only other like-minded people in what must be a few hundred people.

Unfortunately, that one moment is all it takes for a distraction to make itself known.

"You don't look like you're having a good time," a voice calls to him, and by the casual tone, the guy is _way_ too fucking close.

And yes, Felix generally does have pretty good social skills when he has to; he's a dick because he doesn't want to deal with others ( _Doesn't want to risk getting hurt,_ whispers a menacing little voice in his brain.), not because he's physically incapable of being nice.

Still, the first words out of his mouth as he turns around are, "And you don't look like you can change that."

Then, of course, he actually registers the body the voice belongs to, and the rush of heat that floods his face is entirely involuntary, and no less damning for it.

The man in question is a sight taller than him, not enough to make him feel vulnerable but enough to make him _look_ , with hair so red it almost looks unnatural and eyes that spark with a warm sort of laughter. It's clear that he's laughing at what must be Felix's noticeable reaction, but nothing about it seems mean-spirited. Instead, he shifts from side to side as though he can't help but move to the thrumming beat pulsing throughout the house, and as he does so, Felix watches the deep neckline of his star-speckled shirt fall open, revealing a chest that has no business looking that defined.

Goddamn, he is thoroughly fucked.

"What a shame," the man says instead of whatever must be bubbling inside of him with that half-cocked smile on his face. "So you think the prince of Faerghus can? I have to admire your gumption, dude."

Felix will think about the oddity that is frat-boy slang next to SAT words later, when he's not busy combusting with a mixture of embarrassment and irritation. "Dimitri's my friend, asshole."

As if he could hear them - and the bastard does have an uncanny sense of timing - Dimitri looks up from where he is almost certainly regaling his new friends with the story of Lambert's fall off the UF stage that was expunged from the presses with all possible speed and grins, sending Felix a thumbs up that reeks of parental pride.

"Whoa, did he hear us?" The man looks surprised, but Felix can't relish the thought of proving him wrong when all he can think about is the perfect circle his mouth makes when it drops, the widening of his eyes that is borderline adorable.

He takes a long sip of his beer instead of voicing any of this, only to make a face at what is certainly the cheapest possible variant. "No. He's just always on the lookout for any opportunity to embarrass me."

The man laughs with his whole body, and when he tilts his head back, black satin around his throat catches Felix's eye, and his mouth goes dry. "Fair enough, dude. My friends are all like that, so it's a good thing it's just me here talking to you. I'm already kinda bombing, but I couldn't resist."

Felix doesn't know what possesses him, but he offers a half-smile in response. If he remembers this later, he'll blame it on the choker. "To be fair, you could be saying all the right things and I'd still hate it. This really isn't my scene."

The man tilts his head then, and the sudden ease with which he carries himself is nothing short of fascinating. "Then what do you say we sneak up to the roof? I promise I won't try anything, and I know where all the best stuff is kept."

Something in the pulsation of the music, the vibration of the lights, must be altering the basic chemistry of his brain, but there in the neon darkness, Felix chugs the rest of that awful beer and says, "Yes."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> twitter: @kingblaiddyd

**Author's Note:**

> twitter: @kingblaiddyd


End file.
